Legend of Aeran
by Shaolin-Zuki
Summary: For ages upon ages the little town of Moore has upheld old traditions which have otherwise faded away from the world. One in particular stands out - Virgin sacrifices to the Dragon of Mournlocke Mountain. As young Yarrow comes to find when he is the next virgin sacrificed to the dragon, there is much more at stake than providing the dragon another meal... M/M MPREG WARNING
1. Chapter 1

Nobody had ever told me how dark caves were.

I had only ever heard about the things that lived in them.

I never imagined that my life would be spent living in a cave… And as of this morning, that was exactly the case.

I missed my farm.

I missed my father.

My brothers..

My sister.

I missed everyone and everything I had left behind, but they didn't miss me quite as much considering it was they who decided to put me up for sacrifice.

But… I was happy to do it.

I'd gladly live the rest of my life in this dark, wet cavern if it meant keeping Aura safe – I was just lucky enough that the wards at the mouth of the cavern let themselves down for me. It meant he wouldn't be so picky from now on, that a sacrificial virgin didn't always have to be… a girl.

I was full prepared to live the rest of my life in this cavern for as long as it would be. If the stories were true, though..

Dragons don't usually let their sacrifices live long.

Knowing I wasn't going to be able to see anything from here on, I took a moment to kneel down beside a pool of water while I was still near enough to the mouth of the cave that I could see. There was just enough light to take one last look at myself – and although it was dark, I could see my sun-kissed face was already filthy just from the dust in the air. My hair, while it had been dark as night, was now sort of a dark ashy color from the layer of dust covering it. But when I reached up to touch my short-cropped hair, I realized, especially upon bringing my fingers to my nose, that this wasn't dust at all!

It was ash.

At least my eyes hadn't changed. The same dull brown they'd always been. I took one last good look at myself, even as I stood and the water rippled. I didn't look away until I stepped over it and couldn't see the pool past my heels, and then… I just started walking.

It wasn't long before I couldn't see anything at all and I had to navigate with wide, silly-looking steps and my hands stretched out in front of me. I remembered the bats we had on the farm and how you could step out into a cloud of them and never be touched – I knew how they did that from listening to the old scribe who lived in the monastery on the hill and I thought I could use sound to avoid tripping over anything… but I didn't want the Dragon of Mournlocke Mountain to hear me. I wanted to stay out of his attention for as long as I possibly could – maybe live as long as Lady Macaree, who supposedly lived twenty years in the Mountain before the dragon found her!

As I went on, I felt the path I was taking gradually began to go downhill. I had to lean back at one point so far that I felt almost like I was laying against a wall, but the path was so rough and uneven that the soles of my feet didn't slip and slide. I wish I had shoes, something with traction – but as it was I wore the same thing all sacrificial virgins did, just a hand-sewn robe of white cotton and nothing else so digestion would be easy for him.

As deeply stuck in the cavern as I was, my mind was all the way back home. I could picture Lane tossing out his old shoes with holes in the soles and putting mine on, reveling in how comfortable they were for him. I could see Birch putting on my sheep-skin vest, right over his doeskin tunic, how good he'd look in it. Ulrich was off serving in the war, but I'm sure he would've liked my buckskin britches – I'd put extra padding in the seat of the trousers so long horse-rides to the city weren't so bad, even though I'd only gone twice with father when Birch wasn't available to go.

Then there was Aura. I'd given her my most prized possession – my dragon scale.

Because I was the only one stupid enough to go near Mournlocke Mountain to find it laying just outside the mouth of the cavern.

I was so deep in thought that I didn't realize there was no more path before me – instead, a sharp drop and nowhere to go but down. As my foot fell through thin air my stomach lurched and my heart jumped into my throat, and toppling forward, upside down, twisting round and round as I fell through the air and scraped the sides of what I could only assume was a vertical tunnel, I screamed louder than I'd ever screamed – at first in terror, and then just because I could.

I'd already screamed. He knew I was here. He had to. Why not let everything loose in a vocal cacophony?

Then, all at once, a light bloomed out of the darkness and blinded me, my eyes shrunk back into my skull and my eyes couldn't shut quick enough—and just as they did close, my body hit something and I thought for a second I was dead!

But… I was drowning.

I couldn't swim.

I never learned how.

I opened my eyes only to have them sting, so they shut again while the wet taste of stalk invaded my nose and mouth, stung everything and as disoriented as I was I couldn't help but thrash, trying to find my way to the surface. I felt my back bob against the surface, the change in pressure I could feel told me I was floating and so I thrust my face up to the surface as best as I could—I got hardly any air before I sank down again and this time the terror was real, so real and I screamed for help even as water rushed down my throat and filled my lungs and my belly.

Before I knew it, an already dark world filled with confusion and pain simply faded away from me.

I was dead.

I had to be…


	2. Chapter 2 - The Chamber

I don't know how long I was out. I didn't immediately register what I woke up that I was, in fact, waking up – I didn't remember that I was supposed to be dead or the terror I felt or how far I must have fallen… no, all I remembered was my splitting headache.

I was still sopping wet, and my body was tingling all over, and despite how cold the cavern had been before—especially considering it was winter and there was several feet of snow outside of the cavern—I felt like my blood was boiling inside of my veins. I hadn't felt anything like it since I was a child and the Fire Fever had come upon me – that alone had only been quelled by my living outside in the wood shed where only an inch of thin wood was between me and the wintery forest.

When I woke up I tried to sit up and when I tried to sit up I felt all of the fluid still in my lungs shift, and I suddenly was overwhelmed with the need to cough it up. The cavern I was in, which was lit only vaguely with small fires licking the walls of the oval-shaped chamber, was filled with the sound of my coughing and gasping and soon – retching.

I hadn't eaten a day or more before coming here so there wasn't anything to come up besides the salty-sweet liquid I had swallowed. I must have coughed up a gallon and thrown up a gallon more before I felt better, and as I pushed myself up to my feet I felt weak and waifish, swaying on my feet like I was fifty yards tall. I was up, though, and though my vision was somewhat blurry I looked around to try and see where I was now.

I could see the cavern well enough because of the fires—how it was so wide and shaped like an oval that it hardly seemed like a natural thing. It seemed man-made, in fact, with walls and floors so smooth and unlike how the rest of the caverns felt. There was a groove, a rim—a moat? Yes, a moat of sorts carved into the walls so that the base of the fires were at my chest-level and some strange liquid smelling almost like kerosene filled the moat, which fed the fires as they danced across the surface of the liquid and licked against the walls, burning them black in great stretching shadows.

I looked up, and I could not see the ceiling. It was dark up there but more than that it was extremely tall, I doubt I could've seen the ceiling even if there was more light.

"Where…" My voice was hoarse from all the coughing. My throat hurt, I winced and swirled my tongue in my mouth to work up some saliva before swallowing that to provide some relief.

I hadn't seen the dragon yet… and I began to wonder if he was even here. What if he had left? What if he migrated like birds do in the winter?

Would I starve to death or die of thirst before I even saw the dragon?

Would I just be a rotting corpse by the time he returned, something for him to dispose of?

I felt a pang of guilt at that – I wanted to apologize for that, and I wasn't sure why. All the dragon ever did was kill. Why should I feel bad about leaving him a corpse to clean?

Clearing my throat, I looked back downward—and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw someone standing there right in front of me!

My eyes widened and I made to step back, though because of my physical state I ended up tripping over my own legs to land hard on my tail-bone. But—it only hurt a little, not as much as it had every other time I'd fallen on my tailbone.

"Wh—What—Who—" Was anyone else supposed to be down here? Was this another sacrifice who had avoided the dragon for so long?

"You shouldn't have gone into the water." A deep, husky voice spoke. I realized the figure was a man, and I confirmed this visually when I blinked the salty tears out of my eyes and squinted to focus my vision.

He was tall, just a little bit taller than I remembered Ulrich being even donned in all his armor. His skin was dark, a deep tan the likes of which I hadn't seen before and his hair, just as dark as mine, reached all the way down to his knees! It was like silk and… oh…

It was the only thing covering him, like Lady Godiva herself.

"Wh—Who are you?" I stammered out, trying to get back up.

But he stopped me. He squat down and put his hands on my shoulders to keep me down, his bright amber eyes leering into mine.

"It makes you parched. The water does. How do you feel?" He asked me.

Confused, I lifted a hand to my head and brushed my bangs out of my eyes to stare at him, I responded in a far-away voice, "P.. Parched…"

"Dizzy?" He asked.

"I-…. Yes?" I responded.

"Hot?" He asked. His grip tightened on my shoulders.

"Y—Yes—Who are you?" I asked again, leaning away from him, "Are you—were you a virgin? How did you manage to hide from him for so long…?"

The strange man laughed, his eyes glittering with amusement in the low light while his lips stretched in a more malicious way over teeth sharper than any man's I'd ever seen. They were sharpened into frightening points, the likes of which were never meant to eat any sort of vegetable.

"Hardly," he responded quietly, and he leaned down on me, his hair draping like a curtain over the both of us as he forced me to lay flat on the stone and he brought a leg over me, sitting on my middle while staring down at me with eyes that, I realized in the closeness between us, seemed almost to be glowing, "do not fret." He assured me, no doubt sensing my panic as my breathing picked up again, "What is your name, boy?"

I realized more than anything else in that moment that this man was, in fact, stark naked.

…and well-endowed, because of how heavy it felt on my chest, the musky thing to put a pony to shame.

I kept my eyes on his face because of it, not wanting to look at it. I couldn't bring myself to look at any other part of him than his eyes and that smile even as my face burned with the deepest shade of red and I stammered in response, "Y-Y-" I swallowed thickly, "Yar—Yarrow… Yarrow H-Hewnson."

"Yarrow Hewnson…" The strange man purred, rolling the name on his tongue like it were a cherry, grinding it out through his teeth in a slow and purposeful manner while his hands gripped my shoulders even tighter, the pricks of his nails digging into my skin through the robe.

I… could not have imagined what was going to happen next.

Not even in just the next moment.

The next… everything—the days, the months, the years…

It all started here, with this. This one little thing I could not wrap my head around.

He kissed me.

His lips, his tongue, the whole inside of his mouth was hot, like fire, and that was what my mind chose to focus on considering it had trouble dealing with the fact a naked man was sitting on my chest, kissing me.

I didn't like men.

I didn't like women.

I couldn't remember liking anybody, though I'd given both men and women a gander here and there when they were especially beautiful or handsome. I couldn't remember ever giving it a serious thought.. neither courting or marriage or children or family had ever crossed my mind – it had always been about taking care of my siblings and the farm and…

I didn't feel this was right, but I didn't feel it was wrong, either. It was just… strange—the way his hot, slick tongue swiped all around my mouth, capturing and twisting about my tongue as he encouraged me to kiss him back and I don't know why I would ever – I mean… what was the point of it?

Who even was this man?

But still he went on, encouraging, eyes staring so intently down at me as he kissed me, and finally when his hands left my shoulders and cupped my face, hot palms gently stroking my cheeks and my hair, I squinted my eyes shut and shut out the "who" and "why" and I just.. kissed him back. I imitated him as best I could, since I had never kissed anyone before, and it seemed to do well enough as he smiled at me, breaking the kiss with a hot, sweet-smelling breath exhaling across my face.

"W-Why… are..?" I knew what I wanted to ask, but I felt out of breath, and my mouth didn't want to form the words I wanted.

"You don't have to wonder why, Yarrow Hewnson." He assured me as he stood and moved himself down to sit between my legs, gathering up my robe to pull it up over my hips, "Just let me do as I do, and soon it will all be over. You understand why you were sent here, do you not?" he asked as he pulled the white cotton up over my belly.

"To—To be sac.. rificed—" I stammered, and feebly I tried to pull my robe back down, though he would pull my hands away and pull it up to my armpits.

"Yes. This is part of it… Soon your Dragon will appear, and you will die. Your village will be safe for another fifty years, your crops will flourish, fish will overflow in the river… All because you have given yourself to your Dragon." He explained, voice tender and purring as he finally hefted my robe up over my head, tossing it aside.

I was nude, then, just as nude as he. I'd never been nude with a man before, not even my brothers, and I felt ashamed for it as I closed my legs and hid my length with my hand. I was so bleary now that I could barely register what was going on – my head was swimming, not unlike the time I had gone drinking with Birch far before I was allowed and my poor, stupid young head couldn't handle it.

"Why… this?" I moaned quietly.

"It is part of it. You surely must wonder why only Virgins are sent as sacrifice…?" He responded, letting me cover myself while he gathered my legs and pushed them up to my chest.

I was just the tiniest bit more alert when I felt him—that very large, hot part of him—rest against a place I had only ever touched when cleaning.

It made my eyes widen, my lips part, my body tense as I tried to move away from him – but he had pressed my legs firmly to my body and my arms were all but useless.

"Don't—This—" I panted, staring blindly into the darkness above us, "—I'm not a woman, this isn't—that's not right—" What did he hope to accomplish in doing this with me? I wasn't a woman, I could not bear children—what other reason was there in doing this? I'd always been taught…-

"It does not matter, Yarrow Hewnson." He murmured, leaning himself over my legs, pinning them with his body as his hands gripped my rear and lifted it off the hot stone beneath us, "You will not live beyond this moment. Do not spent your last moments in fear, and confusion… Give into whatever you feel, and do not think about it."

He began to press forward.

"Give into a final moment of bliss."

At first there was pressure…

…and then there was pain.

I had nothing I could possibly compare it to – I did not know it didn't hurt as much as it should, but it still hurt, and the pressure sinking into me was so foreign it made my nerves jump alight. I felt him pushing himself into me, slowly, but steadily and without reprieve. I tried to do what he said, I tried not to be scared, I tried not to ask questions or think about things too much but still I found tears welling in my eyes, spilling over as I stretched wider, and wider, more and more painfully.

I didn't think he'd ever stop – I began to feel so full it felt like I was filled in every corner of myself, I felt nauseous and uneasy as his thighs came to rest against my rear and he seated himself fully into me and while under normal circumstances anyone taking a length that large no matter how gently would be screaming and begging for reprieve – I wasn't. It felt.. I could feel it, but it didn't hurt any more than I imagined a woman's first time would have.

I didn't know why.

I didn't know any better.

I just didn't think about it.

Within moments, then, he had begun to move. He kept me pinned in every place possible so I was not allowed to move, so I simply lay there as he pulled himself out of me and then pushed himself back into me. It didn't hurt any less, if anything else the salty musky pre-cum spilling out of him make the newly made splits in my rear from over-stretching burn like pouring salt into any other wound. The tears flowed freely and I found myself sobbing like a child, both out of pain, and fear of my impending doom, and confusion…

He didn't give me long to adjust before he began to move faster, banging himself in and out of me harder than I was prepared for. What did he care, though? He would use me once and then be done with me. He told me I was going to die after this. Maybe during this? I was so scared. I was so confused.

He was making quick work of things. He was picking up speed far quicker than I was prepared for – he cared nothing for my fear or my confusion but I was a tool for him to use. I was no longer a virgin, and rapidly becoming even less than that as he released my arms and moved my legs apart so he could lean farther over me, drive himself even deeper into me. He held my legs to his sides and got so close to me that we could kiss again – but he made no motion to do even this, so I turned my head and he snorted breath after hot breath into my hair while the world shook around me and my insides burned like fire.

It did, eventually, begin to feel good though I couldn't tell whether I was genuinely enjoying it or if I had simply gotten used to the pain. Maybe both – maybe I was used to the pain and that allowed pleasure to peek through the cloud of stabbing, throbbing pain—

Or maybe it had just been the beginning, and I had resigned myself to a more hellish fate than I imagined.

All at once he stopped, from a jackrabbit-speed of thrusting into me to a dead stop with his length fully hilted inside of me. Then, suddenly, it felt like he swelled within me—and indeed he swelled, but…

….he was growing.

All over himself, he was growing – bigger, taller, swelling in the arms and legs and middle, his skull growing, his hair shrinking—I was so out of myself I hardly registered anything was wrong until he began to stretch me from the inside out to the point where I absolutely had to become vocal.

I cried out in pain and looked up in time to see his hair fallen out, scattering around me—his skin had begun to crack like stone and fire glowed and burned within each crack, making him look like a man made of embers while still he swelled in size, sweeping me up off the ground while he grew, and grew, and soon his hands were so large and gnarled looking that he held me like a child might hold a doll, and that was only the beginning of things.

I could not focus on the rest of the transformation – the sprouting of large, glorious wings and the growing of a long whip-like tail, the elongation of his neck and arms and legs and his face distorting into a maw—I could not focus on any of this as I felt needle-like pricks stabbing me from the inside, and each time I pulled and stretched around him I felt sharp pain unlike anything I'd ever felt before, burning, searing— barbs which had sprouted all over his gargantuan length rendered into my flesh to keep me in place, and I felt death drawing upon me as my hips popped and I could feel the bones of my hips separating, and I, surely, was going to die… just as he said… I never imagined in such a carnal way…

…and…

…again the darkness drew upon me, and I thought, for a final time, 'Surely I must me dead.'


	3. Chapter 3 - Revelations

Was heaven supposed to be so dark…?

Was heaven so cold, so wet, so smelling of moist earth?

Was this hell, instead?

A circle of hell not filled with fire, but cold and confusion, and pain?

I should not have awoken again.

I should not have lived beyond that.

I felt myself tearing apart around him…

I felt things rupture inside of me which caused such pain…

The pain had become such that I was overwhelmed and—

I died—

-…didn't I?

I awoke all the same, despite all impossibilities, and despite the fact I should have been in massive amounts of pain even if I survived, the only pain I felt was that of discomfort in my belly and my rear.

I tried to move, to sit up, but my body felt so weighted, so heavy that I thought I was sleeping with an iron blanket on top of me. It was hard to even roll over, though I managed at least that with a few rocking efforts. Everything in my belly shifted, and I felt nauseated—what in world could I manage to have eaten?

When I opened my eyes this time, I saw… light… but not the same amber glow of fire-light like in the chamber. It was… greenish-blue? The only other time I had seen light of this color was when my father had burned inky papers, where the flames burned blue and green and only for a brief moment.

The light was somewhere beyond the veil in front of me, a veil that appeared to be moss hanging down in front of a small alcove I had ended up in. I wasn't sure how I got here, or where 'here' even was… I only knew what was immediately around me – cold stone beneath me, a raised slab made evident when I draped a leg over the edge and my foot fell a foot or two before splashing gently in a thin layer of water covering the floor. Cold water, water that did not feel warm and tingling as the other water had.

I had enough light to see my immediate surroundings. Just… cold stone, cold water, and a cool green-blue light burning somewhere beyond the hanging moss veil.

Then I looked down at myself.

My eyes grew larger than I thought they could possibly grow…

as I saw…

…my…

…my belly was….

….enormous.

I was…. Preg… nant…?

I couldn't wrap my mind around the concept, even as my hands came to my rounded belly stretched beyond capacity, smoothing over it, pressing repeatedly into swelled, aching flesh which had expanded at far too great a rate yet hadn't seemed to have ruptured or damaged really in any way. It was a miracle, a nightmare—how was this even possible?

I felt my eyes welling with tears all over again. I didn't understand any of this. Nothing made sense! I was—I was a man—I was male—I couldn't get pregnant! This—

For what felt like the hundredth time since walking into the cavern I cried. I wept like a baby, gross and loud and without restraint, and I covered my nude form with my hands as best I could. I was reassured by my own hands that I had not sprouted breasts, I had not lost my manhood, and yet that only added onto the confusion of things.

I pushed myself to stand up and felt that the pain of the weight tugging on my middle, on my insides, the muscles sore and unwilling to hold the new… growth, was almost too much to bear and so I held it up with my own hands, carrying my own middle around like a sack of flour while I pushed past the hanging moss veil out into the rest of the cavern.

Sobbing still, I looked around to see this room appeared to be a side-chamber of sorts. Small waterfalls leaked freely from the walls and poured into carved pools which spilled over onto the floor, which explained why there was ankle-deep water covering the entire floor. Each pool appeared to have a few different size rocks stacked beside it, as if stepping stones allowing one into the pools. I was sweaty, I felt filthy, I was still covered in ash and more than that… The horrific display I believed to be my death had caused me to soil myself.

Perhaps I really had died.

Just… come back, too?

I needed to clean myself up, if nothing else. I felt there was nothing I could do, no way out of this situation, but I couldn't bring myself to just give up or destroy myself to end it. So I climbed up the rocks into one of the pools, and as I sank down into the cold water I felt my muscles tense which caused me to groan quietly in pain.

But the water took the weight off of my middle and my back, and for at least a few brief moments I was relieved of that ache and discomfort while I stuck my head under the waterfall and I washed all of the ash, sweat and the rest out of my hair and off my body. I began to feel clean, fresh, almost like a human being again.

"What's going on…?" I asked the pool as if expecting an answer. Anything was possible at this point, wasn't it? I held my head in my hands and let the cold water pour over me, hoping it would wash away much more than ash.

I did not receive an answer from the pool… but the cavern instead spoke to me.

The cavern walls vibrated around me with a ravenous noise that filled the cavern so loud that I had to cover my ears before my eardrums burst. Pebbles and small fist-sized chunks of rock broke off from the ceiling and fell onto the watered floor below, and to avoid being hit by anything I scrunched myself up under the water, which proved useful as a stone about half the size of my fist struck the water and barely scraped me where it might've split my head open otherwise.

The noise faded away after a few agonizing moments, and the walls stopped shaking, the stones stopped falling and I slowly uncovered my ears to hear—and feel—the faint booming of something crashing against the walls in the distance.

It could only be one thing.

It… it had to be him.

It started coming back to me now, as I waded to the edge of the water.

My skin prickled with fear as I remembered seeing what I saw… the way he grew and deformed, the way his skin split and shifted.

I climbed out of the pool and endured the pain and pulling discomfort of the belly weight once more, sparing only one arm to carry it as I made my way to the stone stairs that led up to a higher level, an archway carved into the wall about twenty feet off the floor.

It led into a larger chamber where several of those carved archways appeared to be – all of them were sized for a human, and no entrance appeared in any way large enough to fit a dragon. Yet there, on the far side of the large cavern, was he.

The Dragon of Mournlocke Mountain.

Just as large and fearsome and spined and scaled as he was in all the storybooks and artist's depictions.

He was far larger than any house I'd ever seen, looking like he could sit on the top of Aural Castle and fit in it just like a king might fit his throne. He was so large, so gargantuan that I couldn't imagine having had that inside of me—His length had to be bigger than I was as a whole, even, so how—

I had wandered out into the open, pregnant and nude in all my pathetic glory for him to see. I didn't think to hide from him. I thought that if he killed me and ate me, it would be a kindness.

The Dragon was busy thrashing himself against the walls, snarling and roaring in what appeared to be a fit of anger as he shook loose stones from the ceiling, shook the ground and carved pieces out of the wall with a single swipe of his dreadful looking black talons. His scaled red hide, which appeared as polished fire glimmering in a light captured under each scale, effectively making the beast glow like a firefly in the night, slammed repeatedly against the wall and his wings flared high against the walls in a cramped fashion—

Finally, when he turned around enough to see me as he dug his great streaming horns into the stone, those eyes, great fiery orange-red orbs burning in his skull widened and fixated on me, and all at once he threw himself onto the ground in front of me which caused the ground to shake and I to fall over onto the stone. The added weight threw me down harder than I expected, and so I lay there for a moment, groaning and hissing and swallowing my vocal insults before they had chance to escape.

"You!" His voice was loud, so much deeper and so much louder it was like the grinding of stone that happened to sound like words, "You are alive? How?" He asked.

I didn't know – how was I supposed to know? With tears biting at my eyes I pushed myself to sit up while holding my middle and I glared at him with burning anger, "I'm supposed to be dead!" I yelled up at him, throat still sore from my screaming, "You defiled me – You've turned me into a woman, and I was supposed to be dead!" I screamed up at him, voice cracking with effort.

A deep, low growl roiled in the back of his throat, and as he swept a great scaled hand behind me, large as a fisherman's nest, he picked me up in his palm and brought me close to his face so he could sniff at me with his snout. His breath was hot, it burned me like standing too close to a forge each time he exhaled over me.

"Stop it!" I swung a fist out and smacked him right on the nose, though it seemed to hardly register with him, "Just kill me—put me out of my misery! You promised!"

The Dragon drew his great head back and stared down at me in silence for a long moment… Then, as his eyes squinted with suspicion at me, he leaned down and asked, "…Have you given any possible thought as to why you are still alive, Yarrow Hewnson?"

I didn't.

I didn't want to.

I didn't answer him.

When I didn't answer him, he shook me like a ragdoll—but gently, as if not to actually injure me.

"Think, boy! You have magic!" He barked at me, setting me back on the cold stone floor, drawing himself back to gaze down at my astounded expression, "Anyone else would have died and stayed dead – You came back, and you healed ten-fold. Why is that? You have magic."

What… What?

"What…..?" I breathed the word.

Disgruntled, and irritated, the dragon lowered himself to lay on his belly with his whole self scrunched up against the back of the cavern so he did not crowd me. But his arms wrapped around me, his head hovered just above me and he explained.

"You smelled of cow dung and horse hay… I figured you to be a farm-boy, and I am not wrong, am I?" The dragon asked.

I shook my head, eyes wide and unblinking at him.

"You would not know, then. If a simple boy like you were to find a magical trinket… It may look like a smooth stone, but it may raze fields with a simple word. It would be but a stone in that boy's hand. If you picked up the same stone… it would glow red in your palm, and set aflame anything you set your mind and eyes to. You are not a mage, but you are receptive to magic… and you are not the first, I will mention." He said, with a roiling hiss lingering in the back of his throat so as to suggest that last note was bitter for him.

He brought his hand closer and drew the leathery pad of a digit along my back, which was hardly comfortable but he obviously meant for the gesture to be comforting.

"There have been many magically-endowed virgin offerings sent to me before… Most wouldn't have even known, just as you had not before now. It was my hope that if they possessed enough magical prowess that they could survive the bond, and yet, they perish. The womb takes hold of them, it feeds and sustains them, heals them, and yet by morning they are dead, as is the boon inside of them I've placed." He muttered, pressing the tip of his digit against my belly, causing me to squirm in pain which he seemed to quickly recognize and stop his action.

"Not you, though… Yarrow Hewnson…" He purred, bringing his nose in close to me, a forked tongue hot as liquid fire snaking out to taste the air around me, though it never touched me directly, "I never imagined it would be a human male to survive the bond – It is as uncommon an occurrence among my kind as it is your own that the male should carry the brood… and yet—"

"—Brood?!" I blurted out, fear and anger forcing words out of me I never thought I'd say to the fact of a dragon, "You did! You impregnated me! Like a woman! Why? Why?! Why not just kill me?!" I demanded.

The Dragon seemed taken aback! He reared himself back up, sitting tall on his haunches as he huffed a cloud of smoke out of his nostrils and he boomed down at me, "Do you not understand what you carry, what this signifies?!"

But I was a simple farm boy.

I was terrified.

I was in pain.

I was confused.

Of course I didn't understand.

What did I know of the world but fairy-tales and horses and farm animals?

Seeing the anger and confusion on my face, he went on to explain in proud and booming tone.

"Your human hero of long ago, Aegar – He was what you now carry! A joining of Dragon and Human together!"

L—Lord Aegar?

The hero of legend who had WIPED OUT the Dragon race?

Every child, boy and girl, knew of Lord Aegar – He was the inspiration for many knights-to-be, for huntresses and battle-maidens alike.

He was-… Half Dragon?

"Aegar, the single offspring of Queen-Mother's brood, the traitor—he was as you carry now. A joining of Dragon and Human. Possessing the power of both, the weaknesses of neither, he used his proud and noble birth to turn his blades on his own kind—have you not wondered why within the span of only one hundred years Dragons have gone from ruling the skies to existing only in stories?!" He demanded, furious at the concept of such betrayal as such he dragged his claws through the stone, carving crumbles out of it like butter.

"Why… Why—Why do this, then?" I asked, "To me? Why—Why would you want another…? What is the purpose of putting me through such horrific torture?"

The dragon looked back down at me, his expression seeming to soften from its rage, if such a thing could be, and he lowered himself back down to the ground and spoke in a softer, more airy tone so as not to rattle me.

"Do you not understand, Yarrow Hewnson?" He asked me just so softly, "A being of both Dragon and Human… When they grow, they could create a full-blooded brood with any living dragon. It could be the beginning of our re-population now that Aegar the Traitor is gone—It would be the salvation of all dragon-kind!"

I felt sick.

Horrified.

I was made like this…

…just to make another tool?

I stared up at the dragon in absolute horror, and he could see it. He brought his hands around me and he tried to assure me that dragon-kind should not suffer eternal rest, that they had been peaceful with the humans, that the war had only started because Aegar had taken it upon himself—

"That doesn't matter!" I pushed his hands away, or tried, though it was like pushing a brick wall, "This isn't right! You could have found—You could have—" I began to pant. I was running out of breath. My heart was beating too fast.

In what seemed like an instant, the dragon pulled his hands back to himself, and as he exhaled a breath of fire it seemed to consume him, swirling all around him in a great torrent of fire-light. Yet then it shrank, and extinquished, and in the next moment who should stride from the cloud of smoke left behind but the same strange naked man who had done this to me?

He strode quickly over to me and gathered me against his hot, smoking skin, pressing my face into his chest as he gathered me up in great strong arms and held me. It was comforting, in a way – horrific in another.

"Do not strain yourself." He whispered in a voice deep but more relatable, certainly less loud and frightening, "The womb inside of you has healed you, yes—it even brought you back from the brink of death. But do not trick yourself into thinking you cannot still die. Mortals are all too weak – your heart may stop and then all would be lost. It might be another hundred years before I find another who is viable…"

His words made me weep. I wanted nothing to do with him, but he was the comfort as well as the stressor and so I accepted his illusion if only to bury my face into him, allowing him to hold me tightly as I wept for my own torment. I kept muttering, "it isn't right" and "you've ruined me".

Eventually he picked me up, scooped me up like one might a bride as he carried me back to the cold, wet chamber.

"I will not kill you." He told me as he placed me back into one of the pools, "You may be angry with me, you may curse myself and yourself as much as you wish. But it is done and it cannot be undone." He gently stroked my hair, tipped my face up so I had to gaze into those burning amber eyes again as he whispered to me.

"Please don't take this salvation away from me.

Us.

We did not deserve his genocide – we deserve now this boon I have worked so hard to create."

With only that he left me to bathe in the cold pools. I thought I might catch hypothermia if I stayed in them, but they helped with the intense heat I felt burning through my body, and besides that, the water felt remarkably nice compared to when I was outside of the water. The dragon vanished through the archway, and he did not return until several hours later… with gifts.


End file.
